


Again

by kanadka



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Changing Tenses, Dubious Consent, M/M, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 01:30:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20715869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka
Summary: It's easy to hold all the cards when you gave them to yourself in the first place.





	Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cadmean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmean/gifts).

> Dear cadmean! You had the most BRILLIANT prompts and ideas, so I've combined a few because I literally could not pick which I liked best.

Two letters will appear. The first shall be marked _do not open until 1 June 1921_. Noah will receive it May 24th. Agnes will have already opened it, but in 1921 she is still too young to read it, so Noah will look at the broken seal and suppose, what's the harm. Oh, there can be _much_ harm.

_I knew you would open this_, the letter will read. _I will permit you to make this mistake in disregarding directives only the once. Do not make it again. You must now understand that everything will pass in a timely manner - not before, and not after - but precisely at the appointed time. On the 1st, come to the forest behind the town where the caves are. You will meet the priest, and he will give you a job._

Noah will badly want a job. There are not many jobs in Winden in 1921, and he will desperately long for a way out of Winden. A job promises mobility. Maybe, Noah will say to himself, he can make enough money to be able to finish school, or get out of Winden entirely. Maybe he can afford to study in Berlin or Breslau.

But Berlin and Breslau are pipe dreams. Perhaps they _don't_ indeed exist. Perhaps nothing exists outside of Winden. Noah will never know, because Noah will never leave Winden. This, thought the priest, was precisely so by construction. It was because it always had been.

The priest, who had been waiting for the ink to dry, sealed the letter - unsigned, which will appeal to Noah, who has always liked mysteries and getting to the bottom of things - and tucked it in his bag for later dispatch.

If the priest were not nearly as faithful as he was, he might have said to himself: I wonder whether Noah will like getting to the bottom of _this_ thing.

But the priest _was_ Noah, _will be_ Noah. Older, and wiser, and he knew exactly how much he had liked unravelling these threads, even if they unravelled himself a little bit, too.

\--

On 1 June 1921, the priest approached the cave. Noah will arrive in the morning at dawn. Very eager, the priest recalled, his eyes sparkling. Noah will shift uneasily under his gaze and will have guessed who sent the letter. The priest smiled, but Noah's unease will not be much appeased. Noah will not like taking on a pseudonym, but Noah has always been Noah, and "thus was it done, because it has always been thus" is more important than whatever came before. First rule of Sic Mundus Creatus Est: things are the way they are because they have always been. You are a conductor of trains on a track; to go in a certain direction, the track must have already been laid. Perhaps by you, perhaps by someone else. But if it is not there, it never has existed; if it is there, it has _always_ existed. Deviation is anathema.

The priest introduced himself as Adam.

The priest also introduced Noah to the foreman - who will call himself Wolfgang these days and with whom the priest was, shall we say, old friends - and _his_ younger charge, whom Wolfgang will have dubbed Elijah. Noah, Elijah, and the foreman will begin work in the caves, clearing out lumber, chiseling away rock. Heavy labour. It will exhaust Noah, but he will thrive, and will realise he enjoys it, getting his hands dirty, having a direct and personal stake in the project. It will give him some measure of control.

During the nights, Noah will frequent the tavern with other workers, young and old. He will forge the best friendship with Elijah, naturally, since Elijah at this time will be close to Noah's age, but Elijah was ever a lightweight drunk and will fall asleep on his forearms.

The priest approached Noah then and began his tale. The priest and Noah were not talking long before Noah, starry-eyed, begged for more details. About the prophecy. About the beginning, and the end. About the apocalypse.

Noah will feel chosen - respected.

And rightly so, for he was.

\--

_"You don't understand," says the priest, "this happens because it has always happened."_

_Noah, tearful, _doesn't_ understand. He is in a church on a pew with his trousers dangling around one ankle, the other flung across the back of the pew, with his filthy workshirt ruched up to his shoulders. And the church is half-constructed but it is still a church and workmen - people - are nearby. Kneeling would have been easier. Kneeling would have felt natural. But the priest told him he hadn't knelt the first time and thus does Noah obey. He bites his lip to try and suppress a whimper._

_He's not entirely successful. The priest - still fully clothed, only his trousers undone to expose him - pushes into him. The hasty slathering of oil doesn't feel like it was enough. "But you will soon understand," says the priest. "I'll tell you - after this - what I mean." From above, he watches Noah's expression shift helplessly into pain. The priest almost looks fond, lost in remembrance, and he cups Noah's cheek, wiping a tear away with his thumb - or perhaps smearing it further. Is this truly the prayer the priest had promised him? Only the priest looks reverent. "You'll understand, and someday you will be happy for all of this."_

_"I'm not," Noah stammers._

_"You're not now. Shh. I know. You have to have faith." He feels gigantic inside Noah, though Noah knows - because the priest has told him so, and because he believes the priest - that it's simply the strangeness of a first experience. _

_Suddenly the priest's eyes narrow. "You _do_ have faith, don't you?"_

\--

On 14 June 1921, the second letter will arrive. It shall be marked, _do not open until dawn, 21 June 1921._ This time, Noah will obey and will say to himself that he has learnt his lesson.

The priest knew better.

By this time, the foreman will take over the work from Elijah. Elijah will have also been recruited, by the foreman, and two days prior will have been dispatched to another time via another means, a means they won't yet have access to. Elijah's future self will arrive and whisk him away, and young Noah thus shall be left only with the foreman. Six hands will become four, even though there were only ever two people here.

And soon it will be one, for the foreman will begin to _talk_. The foreman will lose faith.

It is of little consequence. The doorway in the caves will find other workers.

\--

On 21 June 1921, Noah will open the letter. He will read:

_Remember that everything will pass in a timely manner - not before, and not after - but precisely at the appointed time_, the letter will read.

_You will kill Herr Wolfgang. Try and make it a clean death. He has lost faith, but as one who keeps it, you must spare him suffering_, the letter will continue. _Afterwards, you will meet the priest in the church, and together you will pray._

The priest, of course, knew it would be neither clean nor quick. The priest remembered this letter well. He wrote the words by heart, because he remembered every word after reading it as a youth, over, and over, and over again, in the coming days, when doubt sowed misery and guilt in his mind and preyed upon his dreams.

The words will not offer Noah solace. They never offered the priest much solace, either.

\--

_"You have to have faith. You _do_ have faith, don't you?"_

_The priest thrusts in harder and it almost, almost begins to feel good. But maybe that's the terror speaking, the thrumming of palpitations in his heart, in his throat, as he struggles to catch his breath. "Of course," says Noah._

_It's evidently not very convincing. The priest wraps his hand around Noah's neck, warning, "Because if you didn't have faith..."_

_He rocks deeper into Noah. Around Noah's neck, his hand begins to clench. Noah gasps and it isn't nearly enough air. His lightheadedness grows worse._

_"I do -" Noah croaks - "I do! I_ am_ faithful!"_

_"And you'll do anything for the cause?"_

_Noah feels like screaming. He's already done anything! Drastic things, he'd never have dreamed of doing! "Y-yes!"_

"_Truly?_ Anything?"

_The hand grips harder, and Noah's vision starts to swim as his pulse thunders in his temples. He can feel the strength in the priest's fingers. One particularly well-aimed thrust has his head spinning and a bolt of lightning dancing down his spine, gathering in his groin. Oh, he _aches_. With trembling fingers he reaches up to the back of the pew and grips it by the edge of the polished wood._

_"Yes," Noah groans, "anything." He begins to sob. "Please - please -"_

_He doesn't even know what he's begging for._

\--

Noah of course will do as he asked. This is how Noah will learn to obey. That is, this is step one.

And after, as scheduled, he will come to the church. The priest was waiting for him there, to receive his confession, or something like it.

"Is it done?" the priest asked.

Noah will be grey with horror, his eyes wide, his fingers trembling. But the evidence will be obvious from his shirt - blood spatter - and he will nod.

The priest directed him to one of the pews.

"He knew," Noah will say, "he knew that's why you sent me. He - he's always known. His beginning - his end - he said -"

"That he's waited a long time for this moment," said the priest. He nodded. "Yes. So have I."

"He said it was interesting that it was me," Noah will add.

"He recognised one last truth," the priest said. "He remembered you, you know. You used to work together. It's always best, I feel, for members of Sic Mundus Creatus Est to recruit themselves."

In one sudden heartbreaking realisation Noah will discover: the identity of the foreman, who had recruited Elijah. The foreman - _was Elijah_. And the priest who had named himself 'Adam' was not in fact the Adam of whom Noah had heard so much but rather -

"My future," Noah will say, in an awed hush.

"My past," replied the priest.

"You made me kill him," Noah will whisper. "When he was my friend!"

"He killed himself," the priest said. "Suicide, merely by your hand. Now that you know what faithlessness looks like, you need to make sure Adam doesn't stray. The real Adam. He has already recruited himself, but he did so ineffectively ... he needs guidance, at this stage."

The priest and Noah have already spoken about this secondary person before. Noah will nod, as understanding dawns. "The one you called Jonas," he will say.

The priest nodded. "He hasn't adopted the name Adam yet. But he will, and you're why. Soon he will arrive. You must be ready."

"Why did you call me Noah?"

And it was at this that the priest smiled, and the smile (the priest remembers) struck him as nearly predatory. "Everything happens when it must," he said. "At the right time - in the right place. There is no coincidence... your path is known. But very few of us know where the path takes them. You - my dear - are one of the chosen." The priest turned to him, and leaned closer. "You have always been Noah," he said, "because _I_ was always Noah."

\--

But this time, something different happens.

The priest remembers all too well. In three thrusts Noah comes - two - one - there it is, Noah arches back and cries out, and the priest - as he remembers - doesn't do him the dignity of catching it in his palm. He lets his younger self spurt all over his own belly.

He speeds up. Only a few seconds more, if he recalls correctly - Noah, beneath him, is so unbearably tight, his eyes scrunched closed and his face turned away out of shame, and there's a sheen to the way the sweat glistens down his thin, young neck in the light from the church windows - a little more - just there - so close -

He -

But -

There's nothing at the precise time.

He was supposed to come, just then? In his memories he _did_ come, he came inside him -

Then why isn't he?

The priest's heart lurches in his chest. Frantic, he retreats, pulling out of Noah entirely. He grabs Noah's hand to grip around himself instead. Noah responds sluggishly and it's more the priest's work to tighten Noah's fingers around his cock and fuck his slack grip. One stroke, a second, then he comes, dead silent and shooting over Noah's soft, still mostly-hairless belly. There, he thinks, panting. Now the image looks just like it did before. Noah's come - or his own - it doesn't matter, it's the same scene he remembers, so nothing has changed.

Nothing has changed!

It shouldn't have changed.

He cannot be allowed to deviate - that's _not_ how Sic Mundus works! Didn't Adam say: all is as it was, because it is? because it will be? Any deviation is anathema!

The priest - Noah - thinks about fucking the boy again. And this time, he'll come inside. Because that's what he did last time. Then again, he's not as young as he used to be - Noah, meanwhile, twitches beneath him, supersensitive for more (the priest remembers doing that; good, that's a commonality), but he himself is spent. He shouldn't dwell here. The priest didn't, last time. It was just the once.

He should know; the last time he was beneath, his legs spread, his face tear-stained, the priest's throbbing cock in his ass. He remembers that the priest above him was kind, caring (or is that just the rose-coloured memory?). He remembers it was only the once.

"Shh," says the priest. Maybe he's comforting them both. He leans down to brush Noah's tears away. "Shhh, it's alright."

"I _killed_ him," says Noah, and this the priest remembers saying.

Maybe there wasn't too much deviation, after all.

Or it wasn't his own.

Claudia has been allowed too much of her own freedom, in her older years. The white devil - no doubt, it's an apt reference. Claudia is erring, is meddling where she doesn't belong. She thinks she can change things. She thinks she can use the past to change the future. She has been operating outside Adam's influence for far too long and he has been far too lax.

You can change nothing! All of them are trains upon a laid track. You can't just roll wherever you like and drop yourself off where you please, between stations! That's how you get derailments! That's how you get apocalypses! Even if you avoid an apocalypse. Because who's to say, that in avoiding an apocalypse, you don't create a larger one? It hurts a bit to think about, but Noah is used to it by now. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

He will have to hunt Claudia down. And if she has to be killed - well, then she didn't have faith. And it's as simple as that.

It's such a shame, what happened to Claudia, he imagines himself saying. What _will_ happen to her.

"How do we know what's right?" whispers Noah. "What's evil?"

Noah leans down and cradles his younger self close. He's shivering, and Noah should let him straighten his clothing, get off the pew, before someone might see something. But no one saw then, so no one will now. "Heed our inner voice," he says. "You must follow no one else but ourselves. I am you. I am your voice. Never forget that."

Noah won't.


End file.
